'Forget protocol, darling'

THEY are the first to laugh when something goes wrong and like nothing better than a blunder. Prince William hit the nail on the head when asked to explain the secret of his grandparents’ enduring marriage. “My grandfather makes my grandmother laugh because some of the things he says and does and the way he looks at life is obviously slightly different than her so together they make a great couple,” he said in the summer.

Prince Philip with the Queen during their royal retreat of Balmoral in 1972 []

“One of the things they have loved over the years is when things go wrong: they absolutely adore it because obviously everything always has to be right but when things go wrong around them they are the first people to laugh.”

The Queen and Prince Philip’s shared sense of fun certainly goes a long way to explaining how the couple, who celebrate their 65th wedding anniversary on Tuesday, have remained so endearingly close over the years.

Both lovers of pranks and practical jokes, during their tour of Canada in 1951 the Duke chased the Queen down a train corridor wearing a set of giant false teeth.

On another occasion, Philip left a can of nuts on the Queen’s desk during a tour. She let out a squeal as she opened it to find a joke snake popping out.

The Queen, a gifted mimic, apparently does a brilliant impersonation of her husband but he is not shy of having a laugh at her expense either. He cracked up when a servant flipped up a serving table and a piece of creamy gateau landed on the Queen.

Pyjamas, never wear the things

Prince Philip

At Royal Ascot one year, the chair Philip was sitting on broke and he fell to the floor, leaving the Monarch in fits of giggles. He got his own back at Christmas in 2004 when the Queen went sprawling after a bungling servant took her chair away thinking she was leaving the table. There was a shocked silence before everyone realised she was all right and Philip led the family in guffaws.

However, as well as humour, the Queen and Philip’s marriage has always enjoyed its fair share of romance. It all started when a 13-year-old Princess Elizabeth first laid eyes on the handsome young Royal Navy officer, then 18, during a tour of Dartmouth Naval College with her parents. They sealed their friendship over ginger biscuits and lemonade while Philip later displayed his athleticism by jumping over the nets of the college tennis courts.

Throughout their courtship, Elizabeth would play People Will Say We’re In Love from the musical Oklahoma over and over again while Philip was serving in the Royal Navy. It remains the couple’s favourite song.

Determined to keep their love affair secret, they sprang apart when spotted walking hand-in-hand through Windsor Great Park in 1945. Elizabeth’s parents thought Philip “rough, ill-tempered, uneducated and unlikely to be faithful” but they grew to like him. The Queen has never revealed exactly how Philip proposed at Balmoral in 1946, believing it to be a private moment.

George VI insisted his eldest daughter wait until she was 21 before announcing the engagement and whisked her away on a tour of South Africa with the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret for a three-month period of “reflection”. There were tears in her eyes as she waved goodbye to Philip.

The couple’s engagement was announced on July 9, 1947, and the next day they appeared at a Buckingham Palace garden party. Philip gave up smoking the night before his wedding as a gesture to his bride.

They married in Westminster Abbey on November 20, 1947, in front of 2,400 guests. They spent the first night of their honeymoon at Broadlands in Hampshire, the home of Lord Mountbatten, Philip’s uncle. Much to Philip’s amusement, his new wife brought her favourite corgi, Susan, with her.

Despite the Queen being a notoriously private person Philip had no qualms about declaring his love for her, in mind, spirit and body. Indeed, the Duke told friends during a private dinner party in the South of France shortly after their wedding that he and his wife enjoyed a very “passionate” marriage.

When Philip’s cousin Patricia Mountbatten remarked on the Queen’s flawless complexion, the Duke replied: “Yes and she’s like that all over.”

As was traditional with the aristocracy, the couple had connecting bedrooms. One morning, royal valet James MacDonald was embarrassed to find Elizabeth in a silk nightgown and Philip stark naked. “Prince Philip didn’t care at all,” said MacDonald. “Pyjamas, never wear the things,” the Prince is reported to have said.

While the couple were living in Malta, where Philip was stationed from 1949 to 1951, they used to go to the cinema and hold hands in the back row. In 1950, while the Prince was in command of HMS Magpie on the island, he escorted his wife in the despatch vessel HMS Surprise when they were able to send messages through the ships’ radio system.

“Surprise to Magpie: Princess full of beans,” reported the Queen, to which Philip replied: “Magpie to Surprise, is that the best you can give her for breakfast?”

BY HIS own admission Philip can be a difficult man to live with. At a gala lunch marking the couple’s 50th anniversary, he told guests: “The Queen has the quality of tolerance in abundance.”

The Queen has been heard to say: “Oh Philip, do shut up”, and: “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” She once told a friend: “Go on, tell him. No one ever stands up to him.”

While Philip may be required to walk several steps behind his wife, once behind the palace gates he wears the trousers. In 1994, he made this known as the Queen kept chatting to a dignitary in Belize, Central America, while Philip waited to board the Royal Yacht Britannia. He lost his patience and snapped: “Get a move on!” at her.

Although Philip can appear a tough nut to crack deep down he is a big softie who, even at the age of 91, continues to make romantic gestures towards his 86-year-old wife. Philip was playing squash at Buckingham Palace when Charles was born, 64 years ago last Wednesday. He bounded up the stairs with a bunch of carnations and a bottle of champagne and said of his newborn son: “He looks like a plum pudding.”

He once bought his wife a Victorian bed with a hard horsehair mattress because it was good for her back. Whenever they dine together Philip mixes the Queen her favourite drink of gin and Dubonnet just as she likes it. Before a Christmas speech one year Philip encouraged the Queen to take her shoes off to help her relax. “Forget about protocol, darling,” he was overheard saying. “What people want to see is your smile.”

IN 1993 the Queen was due to give a speech but could not find her reading glasses. Philip got up and announced: “I’m afraid the Queen forgot her glasses so I have to read the speech,” and proceeded to do so. Little wonder the Queen described him in 1997 as her “strength and stay all these years” as they marked their 50th wedding anniversary.

She still carries in her handbag a silver make-up case that Philip made for her years ago and a picture of the Duke in Naval uniform takes pride of place on her writing table. If the Queen is upset she sometimes says to Philip: “I’ve got my Miss Piggy face on.”

She once told a friend that in another world she would ideally like to retire to Lancashire and live with Philip in a beautiful valley in the forest of Bowland.

Her devotion to duty made that a mere dream but it is an indication of her true feelings toward the man she has loved for more than 70 years.

The Queen’s former private secretary Lord Charteris summed up their relationship perfectly: “Prince Philip is the only man in the world who treats the Queen simply as another human being. Strange as it may seem, I believe she values that.”

Photographs taken from the book Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, published by Taschen at £99.